Here are the reasons why some corporations can build stronger brands than the others

Corporations around the world are showing increasing interest in building and fostering their own brands. And yet not many of them are able to effectively build a strong and enduring brand that is appealing to the most valuable employees and customers in the market.

The 5 C’s can serve as an essential checklist that explains the prerequisites for any brand-building effort:

1. Comprehension

The corporation has to ensure that it has possessed sufficient understanding of what branding is all about. If it cannot tell the difference between a product and a brand, then it is almost pointless to start the brand-building process as it will be very difficult to carry out any constructive discussion about the brand.

Achieving an adequate level of understanding of brands is actually not the biggest challenge. Instead, the biggest hurdle is for the corporation to accept the fact that it may not possess the fundamental knowledge and is willing to pay an effort to close that gap.

2. Consensus

Every corporation needs a brand-champion. This may be an individual or a team that can serve as the steward for the brand. However, this is still not enough. The corporation has to nurture a culture that treasures the value of the brand and is geared up to convert all employees to genuine brand ambassadors. The logic is very simple – if the staff members are not convinced about the brand themselves then how can they convince the other people to embrace the brand?

3. Consciousness

Brand-building has to become a second nature of the team members so that they are fully aware of what to do and what not to do under any circumstance. This is due to the fact that brand-building is an on-going process and every right move will contribute to the reinforcement of the brand value.

4. Communication

Brand-building is about story-telling. It is indeed the emotions within the story that touches the heart of the audience and eventually turn them into brand advocates.

In this information-overloaded era, out of sight is out of mind. The corporation, therefore, has to make the best use of all the paid, earned, owned and shared media to continuously communicate with its different stakeholders so that the brand perception will be aligned across-the-board.

5. Commitment

The last and probably the most important prerequisite is “commitment”.

Brand-building is a major undertaking that requires the top management to persistently invest both the financial and human resources to support the brand-building effort.

Put simply, there is no shortcut in brand-building. All the top brands around the world are the result of accumulated countless efforts and total devotion.

The assuring fact is that all these efforts and commitments are completely justifiable as the brand will always remain as the ultimate point of differentiation and the most valuable intangible asset for any corporation.